


With Breathless Words And Bloody Knees

by twenty_one_plants



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Beaches, Flying Model Rockets, Happy Ending, Homelessness, I don't know why I wrote this, Interpret this however you like because I mainly wrote it mindlessly, Loneliness, M/M, Realization, Song Lyrics, Songfic, Tyler just has bloody knees that's all, slight blood, the front bottoms - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5282099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twenty_one_plants/pseuds/twenty_one_plants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t you see, man? The moon. She’s our friend. Just look at her and we can remember this. You can remember that weird homeless dude that bandaged your knees and made you breathe right. See? You aren’t crying in that tree anymore. Why were you crying, anyways? That doesn’t matter. You have a friend, and that’s me. I chill here a lot, maybe I’ll see you again.” </p><p>“I was crying because I’m alone. What’s your name?” </p><p>____________________________________________________________</p><p>A mindless fic based off of the song Flying Model Rockets by The Front Bottoms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Breathless Words And Bloody Knees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semi_automatic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semi_automatic/gifts).



_Flying model rockets own the sky in the backyard next to mine_

 

 

Sitting in a tree overlooking the sand of the beach, the waves roaring like lions as they crash against the undeserving sands, breaking down broken-down rocks.

He sits in the tree, shaking, sobbing and trembling. The bark is his only friend; a valiant reminder of the alone in this place.

It’s beautiful, it’s bright, it’s dark, it’s nighttime, and he wishes he could see the stars in the eyes once again, just see something other than black eyes.

There’s trickles of blood dripping from his knees that cry harsher than him; skin torn and warped as a result of falling on the concrete leading up to the sidewalk from the quiet beach. Only homeless people were out this late at night, and some were very nice to Tyler, dancing for him up in his little tree with his little hands pulling at his poor little hairs. Some had simply sat at the bottom of the tree, playing their guitars or violins or small drums for Tyler, the drum is stronger than his weakened heart.

It feels nice, but doesn’t everyone in this place act nice?

 

 

_I get these strange phone calls at night with no one on the other side_

 

 

Tyler supposes, as he hears the man below begin to drum on a plastic container. He hums a tune and Tyler hums back.

It turns into a humming symphony of sorts, beautiful near the beach with breaths of fresh air in his lungs, the ice plants shivering as the words and soft noises wash over.

Tyler and this man were simply putting on a concert for the plants, the lights, the tiny crabs.

Tyler remembers hearing the voice on the phone, numb words and happy, warm, words.

 

 

_My brother's friend explains to me with breathless words and bloody knees_

 

 

Tyler’s knees continue to cry, however, not in a sad tune. The homeless man down below looks above, hand stopping mid beat.

He then stands up, and Tyler believes this is the end, where the man drifts back into the night and sleeps by the beach. It’s nice.

 

 

_It's a black eyed trust, respect with pain_

 

 

It’s always nice, isn’t it?

 

 

_A love I'll learn when I've been through the same_

 

 

The man doesn’t leave, but stares up with bright cocoa eyes that seemingly glowed on their own, like the streetlights of downtown and the string lights of a place hours away; Tyler’s family had brought him there once, or twice, or three times, but the most predominant memory was a theater of bright lights and smoke and getting lost in music and climbing steps and feeling great, going into the library and feeling vellichor, a soft smell of vanilla rose candles.

The man stares up, cocking his head to the side as his skin nearly glows in the moontime light, seagulls softly crying in the background.

 

 

_But there's nothing in California that you could not learn to hate here_

 

 

“Are you okay? Can I get you some band-aids for your knees?” The man calls up softly, twitching nervously.

Tyler looks down, then climbs down, the man helping him a bit when he nearly loses his footing. A piano of electronic kinds can resound in his mind, it’s a music box.

It’s a crappy electronic piano he found at Goodwill or something. It shivers through his body. The homeless man was around his early twenties, possibly nineteen.

The man had shaggy sky blue hair, tiger teeth and sky blue hands, and his voice was blueberries.

The man smiles, beaming at Tyler silently as he flashes a bag of band-aids at Tyler. “If you want them, I mean. You don’t need to take them.”

 

_The questions will all still be waiting for you, the answers will only be less clear_

 

 

Tyler nearly felt bad for nodding, smiling weakly as he perched himself on the railing of the sidewalk, crossing his ankles and balancing himself so he didn’t fall back about five feet down into iceberg plants, those succulents Tyler never knew the name to. He looks down, watches the shadows cascade onto the gravelly gray sidewalk that was wearing down like the skin on his heart. Flinching slightly when the man stroked a small sterile cloth over the wounds on his knees, wiping his knees’ tears.

It stings.

Josh places a band-aid over both of the scraped areas on each of Tyler’s knees, stroking them slightly so they would stay down. The iceberg plants stay quiet.

 

_It's hard to say what I would do if I was back a year or two_

 

Tyler smiles in the dark, the darkness of the area illuminated by the deep midnight blue saturating along the watercolor moon; stars are plane and planes are stars, and stars are shining in Tyler’s eyes. How can a nineteen year old pianist do anything? How can there be stars? How can there be family?

How can there be someone there? How is there someone to talk to, a homeless person that Tyler has never seen before, that makes him feel not alone?

_Look at our plans, try to understand what could have happened to all of them_

 

Is loneliness all we look for? Tyler smiles warmly at the man, shutting his eyes. The man sits beside Tyler, but gently nudges him.

After a few moments, instead of Tyler’s feet dangling over the sidewalk concrete he had slipped on previously, they were slowly dangling over the iceberg plants facing the beach, the ocean, the sky, the moon that didn’t feel anything, that didn’t need to deal with the feeling of loneliness piling up in his chest, black eyes swelling and bloodied knees crying out for help.

 

 

_“Flying model rockets own the sky in the backyard next to mine.”_

 

 

Tyler sings softly, he remembers hearing that song somewhere, not sure, maybe when he was watching people skate down at the skate park.

He went there once with a few of his friends; he had made cookies for everyone at the park, even the noisy sleepy stoners that didn’t speak, only smiled and ate and then skated some more. A feeling of complete misery had never taken him that day, never slowed down his chest or made him feel like a _procrastinating --_

 

_I get these strange phone calls at night with no one on the other side_

 

 

Tyler wishes he got more phone calls, he got more friends.

But had he made a friend that night? His eyes adjust to the light and he stares at the homeless sky blue man beside him, that had made him face the ocean rather than houses and a street and concrete. The iceberg plants below are silent. Tyler begins to think about the bugs sleeping happily in the plants, he thinks about what would happen if he were to fall down onto the plants, crushing the tiny organisms and the tiny little feelings and maybe a bone or two.

He definitely cares more about the bugs. He grins wide, the man beside him grinning too.

 

_My brother's friend explains to me with breathless words and bloody knees_

 

“Don’t you see, man? The moon. She’s our friend. Just look at her and we can remember this. You can remember that weird homeless dude that bandaged your knees and made you breathe right. See? You aren’t crying in that tree anymore. Why were you crying, anyways? That doesn’t matter. You have a friend, and that’s me. I chill here a lot, maybe I’ll see you again.”

 

_It's a black eyed trust, respect with pain_

 

“I was crying because I’m alone. What’s your name?”

Tyler feels the iceberg plants spread and stretch and grow in his lungs, that dead was gone and the night is near, the screams of lions is friendly and the plants blossom, and the feelings of a past of paper rockets flying and soaring through a backyard and watching as the recognition washes over. Tyler recognizes this man.

He knows him, he knows it's _him,_ it’s the dead voice on the other side of the phone when Tyler got phone calls, it’s the bloody knees he got when he tried to climb that tree, when the moon smiled. The voice he recognized and remembered from the paper rockets, the feelings, the good things and the leaves that fell and the cardboard and the sharpie markers that ran out of ink, the cocoa brown eyes downtown and the shining streetlamps, the highschool days and the daze.

The feeling of cookies in your throat and the feeling of good. The blueberries that Tyler had began to miss. Tyler goes slightly pale, grinning.

 

 

_A love I'll learn when I've been through the same._

 

 

“A-Are you Josh Dun?”

 

The man smiles.

 

 


End file.
